Ogopogo the Chameleon

Ogopogo the Chameleon Lake Okanagan’s resident lake monster has undergone many transformations over the centuries. Will the real Ogopogo please rise up? BENJAMIN RADFORD hen Joe Nickell and I began our search for Ogopogo, the famous monster of Lake Okanagan, W in British Columbia, Canada, I had an idea of what to look for: a creature thirty to seventy feet long, with dark skin and a characteristic series of humps. Though I went in search of one monster, in a way I found three. Ogopogo seems to have several distinct incarnations: as an Indian legend, as an elusive biological beast, and as a lovable local mascot. N’ha-a-itk of Indian Myths Because the evidence for lake monsters rests almost entirely on ambiguous sightings, fuzzy photographs, and a lakeful of supposition, native Indian tales have been used to suggest SKEPTICAL INQUIRER January / February 2006 41 to the rocky headland. Suddenly, the lake demon arose from his lair and whipped up the surface of the lake with his long tail. Timbasket, his family and his canoe were sucked under by a great swirl of angry water (Quoted in Moon 1977, 25). This was modus operandi for N’ha-a-itk: it would use its mighty tail to lash the lake’s waters into a fierce storm that would drown its victims. The white settlers apparently followed the Indians’ warnings. Yet white men also lapsed at times and had to be reminded of the wrath N’ha-a-itk could wreak. In 1854 or 1855, a settler named John MacDougall is said to have neglected the sacrifice. While crossing the lake with a team of horses, a great force sucked his steeds down with a tremendous slurp. MacDougall was terrified, but even more so when he realized Figure 1. Lake Okanagan’s Rattlesnake Island (Monster Island), reputed home to that his canoe, lashed to the horses, was about to be pulled down the Ogopogo monster. Photos and illustrations by Benjamin Radford. to a watery doom as well. He grabbed a knife and cut the ropes, narrowly escaping with his life. historical precedence for the creatures. Some lake monsters, such Mary Moon, author of Ogopogo (1977), cautions those as Loch Ness’s Nessie and Lake Champlain’s Champ, are depicted seeking retribution: “Anyone thinking of killing Ogopogo had as mysterious but fundamentally friendly beasties, playful and elu- better ponder the fate of the Lambton family. During the sive. Not Ogopogo, or at least not the Indian stories upon which first half of the fifteenth century, Sir John de Lambton killed it is supposedly based: that of the fearsome N’ha-a-itk.1 The N’ha- a ‘wyrm.’ As a result of killing the monster, the Lambton a-itk / Ogopogo link is firmly cemented in the creature’s history family fell under a witch’s curse: for nine generations no and lore, more closely tied to native myths than any other lake Lambton would die in his bed. None did. Some say the curse monster. Virtually all writers on the subject lump the two together, has pursued the Lambtons down to the 1970s.” Thus black and in fact most use the terms interchangeably. For example, “the magic enters the Ogopogo story. According to Moon, “The Indian name for the animal was Naitaka,” writes Peter Costello in Indians . looked on it as a superhuman [supernatural] his book In Search of Lake Monsters (Costello 1974, 222). Loren entity” (Moon, 32). Other writers agree, including W. Haden Coleman and Jerome Clark, in Cryptozoology A to Z, state that Blackman, who points out that the Sushwap and Okanakane “The monsters . are known both as Ogopogo and by their Indians “believed that it was an evil supernatural entity with native name, Naitaka,” (Coleman and Clark 1999, 183) while the great power and ill intent” (Blackman 1998, 71). definitive book on Ogopogo, In Search of Ogopogo, by Arlene Gaal, N’ha-a-itk’s paranormal connection to the elements is per- is subtitled “Sacred creature of the Okanagan Waters” and has a haps the strongest of any lake monster. Not only does N’ha-a-itk chapter titled, “Native legends of the Ogopogo.” seem to have supernatural control over the lake’s waters, it also N’ha-a-itk, variously translated as “water demon” or “lake commands aerial forces as well: “the Indians said no boat could monster,”2 would demand a toll from travelers for safe passage possibly land [on Rattlesnake Island], for the monster would near its reputed home of Rattlesnake Island (also known as cause a strong wind to blow and baffle the attempt. the Monster Island), a small rocky clot in Lake Okanagan (see figure 1). monster was something more than an amphibian. It was always The fee was not just a bit of gold or tobacco, but a sacrifice—a in some way connected with high winds. .” (Moon 1977, 32). live sacrifice. Hundreds of years ago, whenever Indians would What manner of monster is this? The power to summon venture into the lake, they brought chickens or other small storms and create whirlpools? Witch curses? (Frankly, not animals to drop into the water. The drowned fowl would sink dying in one’s own bed doesn’t seem like that terrifying a into the lake’s depths and assure its owners a protected journey. fate.) Such stories and descriptions suggest that N’ha-a-itk is a The island’s rocky shore was said to be littered with the gory legendary disincarnate force of nature, not a corporeal creature remnants of passersby who did not make the sacrifices. actually living and eating, breathing and breeding, in the cold Indian traditions speak of Timbasket, the chief of a visit- waters of Lake Okanagan. ing tribe who paid a terrible price for challenging N’ha-a-itk. One must be very careful about accepting native stories and Historian Frank Buckland tells the story: legends as true accounts of actual creatures. Just because a given Timbasket, the Indian cynic . declared his disbelief in the culture has a name for (or tells stories about) a strange or mysteri- existence of the lake demon. He was told that the Westbank ous beast—be it Sasquatch or Ogopogo, dragon or leprechaun— Indians intended to sacrifice a live dog to the water god as they doesn’t necessarily mean that those names or stories were meant passed Squally Point, but he was quite unimpressed. He knew to reflect reality. This highlights a problem that folklorist Michel too much to concern himself with outmoded customs. [Later Meurger points out in his groundbreaking book Lake Monster when crossing the lake] Timbasket defiantly chose to travel close Traditions. Meurger suggests that claiming native evidence for Benjamin Radford is co-author, along with Joe Nickell, of Lake unknown creatures is an “old gimmick of portraying the sighter Monster Mysteries, to be published in 2006 by the University as a kind of ‘noble savage,’” a process he aptly names “the scien- Press of Kentucky. tification of folklore” (Meurger 1988, 13). 42 Volume 30, Issue 1 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER myths to fit their needs, to support whatever argument they are trying to make. They take what they want and use it to support their ideas” (Ganassin 2005). Almost invariably it is white writers, not native people, who insist that N’ha-a-itk and Ogopogo are one in the same. It’s not hard to imagine why native groups might create or perpetuate traditions about the lake. The area around Rattlesnake Island can be a cold, desolate, foreboding area. Nearby lies Squally Point, so named for the violent squalls that can quickly arise and menace boat- ers. As Arlene Gaal notes regarding a rock bluff across from the city of Peachland, “When you look down into the water from there, there’s no bottom whatsoever. The water goes out of Figure 2. “The Dungeon,” a sea serpent lair in northeastern Newfoundland near Bonavista. sight. It looks eerie. Little waves hit the caves along the rocky shore, and they make sucking According to some traditions, Ogopogo’s history dates to sounds. The combination of what you see and hear is kind of even before it was known as N’ha-a-itk. In fact, N’ha-a-itk was scary” (121). There are many “cursed places” around the world, actually a murderer named Kel-Oni-Won. According to Dave where local legend warns off savvy travelers, and where monsters Parker, a traditional First Nations storyteller, Kel-Oni-Won are said to dwell. I encountered one such area on the coast of murdered a vulnerable old man with a club. The gods decided Newfoundland: a huge, dark, unusual sinkhole near a rocky cliff that the killer’s punishment “was to change Kel-Oni-Won into a that had washed out two holes toward the ocean. It is called The lake serpent, a restless creature who would forever be at the scene Dungeon, and is said to be home to sea monsters (see figure 2). of the crime where he would suffer continued remorse. He was According to Ganassin, “you can’t look at a First Nations left in the custody of the beautiful Indian lake goddess and was group anywhere without finding a tradition of some sort of known to the tribesmen as N’ha-a-itk; the remorseful one who entity in a lake they had to respect or fear. Typically they must live in the lake with the company of other animals. It is believed that some sort of spirit inhabits it. Any body of water said that the only animal who would tolerate his company was in First Nations culture can—and often did—generate these the rattlesnake” (Quoted in Gaal 2001, 122).

Load more